


Just A Girl

by intextrovert



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6573001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intextrovert/pseuds/intextrovert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa Woods is living a quiet life in London – running a bookshop with her sister, hanging out with her small group of friends and trying to not hit her obnoxious flatmate in the head with something heavy. One wednesday morning, moviestar Clarke Griffin walks into Lexa's bookshop, and nothing will ever be quite the same again.</p><p>or</p><p>The Notting Hill AU that I couldn't get out of my head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Girl

**Author's Note:**

> The two main reasons that I'm writing this are
> 
> 1\. I've had a horrible writer's block (we're talking years) and I thought it might be easier to get out of it by writing something where I already have an outline to lean on (the movie) instead of making something up from scratch.
> 
> 2\. I love Notting Hill, it's high on my list of all-time favourite movies, and I hope I can make it work with Clarke & Lexa instead of Anna & Will. And no one shoots anyone in it, which is good. Also, despite the movie coming out in '99 I decided to move the setting to present day.. so some things are slightly altered. That's about it, I think.

 

 

_”Stay with us, because later this evening we’re lucky enough to be talking to Clarke Griffin – Hollywood’s biggest star by far. Griffin’s latest film is currently topping the charts and..”_

Lexa reached for the remote and muted the TV as it went to commercials. She didn’t care that much for movies, or celebrities, and didn’t want the overly energetic babble of a reporter as background noise when she turned her attention back to the crossword currently resting in her lap. It was a regular weekday evening, which meant she’d finish her tea, maybe catch the late news on tv and then head off to bed at a somewhat decent hour.  
  
Some would probably call her life boring – and out of the thousands upon thousands of persons in their late twenties that inhabited London, Lexa probably led a quieter-than-average life – but she’d always been more of a silent observer than the person who thrived in the center of attention.  
  
In short – small things, like taking a spontaneous detour through a park on her walk to work every morning, watching the ever-changing flow of people on the streets, or cycling along the Thames as the seasons came and went was more important to Lexa than spending hours lined up for whichever nightclub was deemed the place to be on that specific weekend.  
  
She finished off her crossword by neatly scribbling _”Brunei”_ on across 14 and glanced at the TV, where the commercial break was over, and a pretty blonde woman her own age was smiling excitedly, probably at something the interviewer just said.  
  
Clarke Griffin, Lexa observed. You had to be living under a rock to not know who that was. She’d been Hollywood’s darling for years, due to a combination of starring in the right mix of awards-focused blockbusters and more alternative productions, and honestly – her dazzling smile and classic beauty was not exactly a disadvantage either.  
  
For a second Lexa found herself wondering what life was like in the public eye. She wasn’t one for gossip – of the celebrity variety or among her friends – and rarely kept up with the news outside of politics, science and occasionally sports. In her friend group she was the _”fossil from the stone age”_ as Raven once put it after yet another failed attempt to have Lexa joining some type of social media. That attempt failed even harder than originally intended because Raven’s boyfriend and resident history nerd Bellamy overheard them and promptly launched into a well-meaning but very long rant about how _”findings from the stone age are too young to be called fossils, Rae”_.  
  
On the TV, Clarke Griffin was ushered away down a red carpet in a sunny city halfway across the world, looking every bit the movie star she was, and after a short and unsurprisingly depressing news update, Lexa went to bed contemplating the refugee crisis in the middle east, the overflow of Scandinavian crime novels and how on earth she was going to make her flatmate remember his cleaning duties.

* * *

  
  
A couple of days later, Lexa was flipping through the newspaper and eating her breakfast oatmeal when she was abruptly interrupted by rumbling footsteps down the staircase, soon followed by an excited greeting – in hindsight the first sign that this day would not be like most other wednesdays.  
  
”Lex!”  
  
Once every three months or so, her flatmate Jasper got out of bed before Lexa left for work. Apparently today was one of those rare occurrences.  
  
”Jas, I’m reading. Also, what on earth are you doing up at” she looked at the clock on the kitchen wall ”seven-fifteen? Is the world about to end?”  
  
”Sorry. No, world’s not ending, not as far as I know anyway,” the lanky young man replied, only to be faced with one of Lexa’s stern stares, silently telling him to get to whatever point he wanted to make.  
  
”Um, yeah, so the reason I got up so early is because I need your help with an incredibly important decision.”  
  
”This is important, in comparison to, let’s say whether they should cancel third world debt?” Lexa grumbled with her mouth full of oatmeal.  
  
”Well, almost. I’m going out with a couple of colleagues after work today, and Maya’s gonna be there and I need your help to pick an outfit, because, you know, I wanna look nice because..” Jasper rambled, completely oblivious to the way Lexa rolled her eyes.  
  
She took a deep sigh, kept staring at Jasper and waited for him to stop babbling about Maya.  
  
”First off, Jas – you always wear the same type of clothes, unless it’s a wedding or a funeral.” Jasper hummed in agreement.  
  
”Secondly, I’m pretty sure that the evolution of your relationship with Maya does anything but depend on which one of the fifteen t-shirts with nerdy quotes printed on them you decide to bring out of your closet today. And thirdly – if you really want my advice, go for something classic and not insanely obscure. Preferably something that can turn into a conversation. Star Wars is a safe choice. And ditch the hoodie, take a shirt or cardigan instead. And dark pants.”  
  
”Thanks, Lex,” Jasper said and headed back up the stairs. Lexa shook her head, muttering to herself. ”Did he really get up this early only to ask me for clothing advice?”  
  
”Yes, I did!” Jasper shouted from the second floor.

* * *

  
  
Lexa walked to work, contemplating the very nondescript spring weather and dreading the upcoming stock inventory that was planned. Work in her case was a small bookshop, inherited from her father, and now run by Lexa and her older sister. And despite Lexa’s genuine fondness for literature – counting a whole shop’s worth of books was not enjoyable.  
  
”Morning, Anya,” Lexa said as she flipped the front door sign from closed to open.  
  
Morning, Little Lex,” Anya replied.  
  
”Still only like an inch shorter than you,” Lexa grumbled, only to receive a condescending grin from her sister in return. She walked past the checkout desk and into the cramped pantry that made up most of the back area, stuffing her lunchbox with leftover pasta in the fridge and hanging her canvas bag on the back of a chair.  
  
”Hey, you want me to go grab us some coffee before we get started with this mess?” Anya asked when Lexa reappeared from the back.  
  
”Yeah, sure. Just a regular latte for me, thanks.”  
  
”Coming right up,” Anya said and promptly left for the coffee shop two blocks down the street.  
  
Lexa sighed, and opened the stock list on the laptop they used for everything bookshop related. They could really use a new computer, to be honest. This one was so slow it was borderline ridiculous, and no amount of reboots seemed to help.  
  
As if on cue, the device in front of her made a loud buzzing noise, the kind of noise that no healthy laptop should be making, and Lexa added ”laptop” to her mental list of things she’d have to ask Raven to help her fix.  
  
Thinking about it, the broken coffee machine that had been gathering dust in the pantry since last October should probably be on top of that list too. Brewing their own coffee instead of buying all the time could – considering their combined average caffeine consumption – save them a lot of money, money that could be used for a new computer. Sadly, it would also rob Anya of her favourite way of procrastination – flirting with the baristas over at the coffee shop, and Lexa had a nagging feeling that her sister might oppose the whole fix-the-coffee-machine-scenario because of that.  
  
The shrill sound of the doorbell jingling, and the arrival of the first customer of the day, interrupted Lexa’s coffee-and-economics-related musings.  
  
Walking through the door was a girl – no, woman – about her own age, blonde hair held back in a ponytail, casually dressed but curiously enough wearing both a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. She headed towards the travel book section, which Lexa found a bit surprising. Usually the people who came looking for physical travel books were in their fifties or older, what with the internet and smartphones more or less destroying the market for the printed variety.  
  
”Good morning. Um, let me know if you need any help,” Lexa said, sighing internally. She’d been working in the bookshop on and off since her teens, and full time for the last two years and yet she still felt unreasonably awkward whenever she interacted with customers unless they had addressed her first. She wasn’t even sure why she bothered, but when Anya wasn’t around she felt like she had to at least try.  
  
The blonde turned toward Lexa, studying her from behind her sunglasses. ”I’m good thanks, just looking around.” Her voice was soft and husky at the same time, like a whisper spoken a little bit louder. Lexa gave her a vague nod and turned her attention to a few other people who had trickled into the bookshop.  
  
Still, she caught herself glancing at the blonde over and over again. Lexa was not above admitting to herself that yes, Blondie was beautiful. But there was also something weirdly familiar about her, and that feeling, combined with the oddness of a young person browsing through travel books had poked Lexa’s interest. When the woman took an actual disaster of a book from the shelf, flipping though a couple of pages, Lexa couldn’t help herself. Really, it was her professional pride that made her intervene.  
  
”That book’s really not great,” she blurted.  
  
Blondie gave her a questioning look.  
  
”Just.. just in case you were thinking about buying it, I mean,” Lexa stuttered, feeling her ears getting warm. ”You’d be wasting your money.”  
  
She felt the blush spreading to her cheeks under Blondie’s curious gaze, and tried with all her might to stop the incoming ramble, but alas. Lexa Woods was good at a lot of things – not talking passionately about her opinions on books was decidedly **not** one of them.  
  
”But if it’s Turkey you’re interested in, this one on the other hand, is very good,” Lexa continued, grabbing a paperback from a pile of books on the counter. ”Um, I’m pretty sure the person who wrote it has actually been to Turkey, which helps. There’s also a very amusing incident with a kebab. Which is one of many amusing incidents. It’s written a bit like a novel, this one, which makes it a really enjoyable read, while still informative. And it explains the kebab, I guess..” Lexa trailed off, feeling slightly mortified.  
  
”Well, thank’s for the suggestion,” Blondie said.  
  
”Or, in the bigger hardback variety there’s..” Lexa halted herself mid word-vomit and glanced at the small security screen behind the counter. Excusing herself to Blondie she made her way over to the fantasy and science-fiction shelves at the far end of the store.  
  
That entire section had been the cause of an argument between her and Anya when they re-organized the shop a couple of months back, with Lexa insisting that science-fiction and fantasy were separate genres and had no business being mixed up on the same shelves, and Anya insisting that Lexa was ”a nerd” and that ”no-one cared anyway”.  
It ended with mixed genres, and Lexa refusing to speak to Anya for two and a half days.  
  
A nondescript-looking guy stood there, seemingly browsing the titles, and appeared a little startled when Lexa addressed him.  
  
”Excuse me, sir, bad news.”  
  
The man slowly turned and looked at her, wearing what he must’ve thought was a convincing and innocent frown.  
  
”Well, we’ve got a security camera in this bookshop,” Lexa explained.  
  
”So?” The man clearly didn’t want to acknowledge where the conversation was heading.  
  
”So I saw you put that book down your trousers.”  
  
”What book?” Holy pancakes, this guy really tried to act dumb to get out of the whole situation.  
  
”The one down your trousers,” Lexa insisted.  
  
”I don’t have a book down my trousers.”  
  
”Right,” Lexa said, and it came out a bit more harsh than she had planned. To be fair – at this point, she had to concentrate kind of hard to not roll her eyes at him. ”I’ll tell you what. I’ll call the police and.. what can I say, if I’m wrong about the whole book down your trousers-scenario I sincerely apologize.”  
  
”Okay. So what if I **did** have a book down my trousers?”  
  
”Well, ideally, when I went back to the desk you’d.. remove _Book Four of The Belgariad: Castle of Wizardry_ from your trousers – great book by the way – and.. either wipe it and put it back, or buy it. I’ll see you in a sec.”  
  
With that, Lexa ambled back to the counter, where Blondie was waiting with a smirk on her face.  
  
”I’m sorry about that,” Lexa mumbled.  
  
”No, it’s fine. I was gonna steal one but now I’ve changed my mind,” Blondie With Horrible Taste In Travel Books replied in a tone of voice that made Lexa’s ears heat up yet again. Despite Lexa’s attempt to discourage her she was still holding that terrible travel guide, idly flipping through the pages.  
  
”Oh, signed by the author I see,” Blondie said with a hint of a smile, a smile that made Lexa almost forgive the writer of the book for being such an awful writer, because that smile. Oh wow. It did things to Lexa. Things like making her fantasize about being on the receiving end of an infinite amount of those smiles, and maybe even being the cause of some of them. Lexa stopped her brain right before it started plotting out actual ways to make Blondie to smile. She was not going to go there. Not now. Not ever.  
  
”Um, yeah. Couldn’t stop him. If you could find an unsigned one it’s worth an absolute fortune,” Lexa said weakly, once again internally cursing her natural awkwardness.  
  
Then it happened. The guy with the book down his trousers reappeared, thankfully sans book, and two seconds later Lexa was struck with a sudden realization. Blondie With Horrible Taste In Travel Books had seemed familiar for a reason.  
  
”Excuse me, can I take a picture with you?” the aspiring book thief asked, and as Blondie reluctantly removed her sunglasses and said, with what Lexa assumed was well-rehearsed politeness: ”Sure. Let me just take off my cap,” Lexa went through a minor epiphany. Some days ago she had seen Clarke Griffin flash by on her tv, every bit as unreal as any movie star was to a regular person like Lexa, and now here she was, standing in her bookshop, casually gorgeous in jeans, t-shirt and a light jacket. Holding a horrible book that Lexa already had promised herself to never stock more copies of again, no less.  
  
At that moment, Lexa really wanted to be anywhere but behind the counter. She wouldn’t be opposed to being abruptly teleported to Iceland or something, anything would be less uncomfortable than standing here, watching Clarke Griffin pose for a selfie with a sleazy guy who tried to steal books. Lexa felt her skin crawl, which was ridiculous because Blondie With Horrible Taste In Travel Books had made her flustered and nervous for several minutes before Lexa even realized who she was, but now, knowing that Blondie was a celebrity – someone adored, and objectified, by millions of people – Lexa chastised herself for the butterflies she’d gotten when Blondie smiled at her in the first place.  
It didn’t make any sense, Lexa knew her brain was being more unreasonable than usual, but the sleazy guy made her feel like a creep-by-association, or something.  
  
Sleazy guy thanked Clarke Griffin, and looked down at his phone with a content smile. Apparently he wasn’t very well versed in the ways of reading signals, because just as Clarke distanced herself from him, he asked if she would like his phone number.  
  
Lexa almost sank through the earth from second-hand embarrassment. Would he please just leave the woman alone?  
  
”Tempting, but no.. thank you,” Clarke said with a distinct air of get-out-of-my-sight to her voice.  
  
Sleazy guy thankfully managed to take that hint, and walked out of the shop.  
  
Lexa scratched her neck, looking anywhere but at Clarke.  
  
”I will take this one,” Clarke said and handed her the horrible travel book, signed by the author and all.  
  
Oh. Apparently Lexa’s trash-talk of said book hadn’t been discouraging enough. Awkward.  
  
”Alright, right. So, well second thoughts, maybe it’s not that bad after all.” Lexa said, trying to smooth over her earlier criticism and glanced at Clarke who gave her another faint smile, which honestly only made things worse as it shocked Lexa into another spout of word-vomit. ”Actually, it’s a sort of classic.. really..” she stuttered. ”None of those childish kebab-stories that you find in so many books these days. And, um.. I’ll tell you what – I’ll throw in one of those for free.” Lexa grabbed a copy of the book she’d actually recommended, and thrust it in the bag too. ”Useful for.. lighting fires, wrapping fish, paper planes, that sort of thing.”  
  
”Thanks,” Clarke said and handed Lexa twenty-five pounds in very unwrinkled notes.  
  
”Pleasure,” Lexa mumbled in reply and handed Clarke the bag with her books.  
  
And with that, Clarke Griffin put her sunglasses back on and exited the bookshop, leaving nothing but the faint tingle of the doorbell and a very confunded Lexa behind. The whole scenario had been so absurd, Lexa already doubted if it had occurred at all. Anya sure as hell wouldn’t believe it if she told her. Clarke Griffin and a book thief. Lexa shook her head, walking over to the storefront window and looked out on the street, almost expecting an alien invasion to be in full effect. That would be less surprising.

 

* * *

  
  
A couple of minutes later, Anya came barging though the door carrying two cups and a paper bag.  
  
”One latte, as ordered.” She handed Lexa the larger of the cups, and proceeded to grab a muffin out of the bag.  
  
”Thanks.”  
  
Lexa hesitated because the whole scenario had been so absurd, but decided to tell Anya who had bought a terrible book about Turkey while she was away.

”I don’t think you’d believe who was just in here.”  
  
”Who? Someone famous?” Anya asked, and the casual disbelief in her voice made Lexa backtrack.  
  
”Naah..”  
  
”As if that would ever happen,” Anya continued, voice muffled by the muffin, and what Lexa almost said already forgotten. ”I don’t think celebrities buy physical books anymore anyway. They probably just download everything to their platinum-encased tablets,” she said, as Lexa watched a couple of stray muffin-crumbs land on the floor.  
  
At that, Lexa snapped her head back up and stared at her sister, affronted, and Anya glared back, raising her eyebrows.  
  
”Come on, Lex. If you were famous, wouldn’t you rather stay coped up in your mansion, reading things downloaded from the cloud instead of walking among annoying mortals to acquire physical copies of books?”  
  
”No, I would not,” Lexa huffed.  
  
”Right, no, of course not. You’d go bananas on Ebay and order mouldy first-editions of obscure fantasy novels. But you’d still not go to actual bookshops.”  
  
Lexa sipped her coffee, deciding not to take the bait. Anya loved to rile her up, she’d done it her entire life, and amusing as it could be, it was also annoying and a bit energy-consuming. And she had already consumed a lot of energy today. Busting aspiring bookthiefs tended to do that to a person.  
  
Lexa paused, swallowed the last sip of her latte and said ”I still think that there are celebrities who appreciate bookshops.”  
  
”Right, right. Whatever helps you sleep at night, little sis. Another?” Anya said and gracefully tossed her empty cup into the trash can behind the counter.  
  
”Yeah, why not. I’ll go this time.” Lexa was out the door before Anya had time to open her mouth in protest. Lexa could seriously use a breath of fresh air and a walk. To clear her head, and stuff.

* * *

  
  
She was on her way back from the coffeeshop, Anya’s weirdo frappuccino-concoction – that the baristas luckily had remembered (or written down) because Lexa always forgot what on earth was in that thing – in one hand, and her own fresh orange juice in the other, and just about to turn a corner when two men, having a loud argument about the veggies that one of them appeared to be selling, caught her attention.  
Lexa honestly should have known better. Turning corners on busy pavements, while looking in a completely different direction never ends well. Never.  
  
One second she was looking at a red-faced man waving a tomato in another man’s general direction, and the next thing she knew she had collided with something. Someone. Definitely a someone – whoever it was was, despite sort of elbowing Lexa in the stomach and causing her to drop the cups she’d been holding, way too soft to be a lamp-post or police box or anything of the sort.  
  
”Oooow! Shit. Bugger!”  
  
Someone was also, Lexa realized as she lifted her gaze from the cups scattered on the ground, wearing a t-shirt that used to be white, but now yellow all over the front thanks to Lexa’s orange juice that had escaped its plastic prison during the collision.  
  
”I’m so sorry! Here, let me..” Lexa scrambled for the napkins she had stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans, and thrust them at the juice-soaked stranger’s chest.  
  
”Get your hands off me!”  
  
Shit. She knew that voice. Lots of people probably did, but she had already met the owner of the voice once this morning and holy pancakes this day just kept getting more and more awkward. Lexa reluctantly looked up at a frowning Clarke Griffin.  
  
”I-I’m really, really sorry.” Lexa stammered. ”Look, I live just over the street. I have water and soap, you can get cleaned up.”  
  
”Thank you, but I just need to get my car back,” Clarke Griffin said, while wiping her hands on the napkins and trying to un-stick the soaked t-shirt that was clinging to her stomach.  
  
”I also have wifi, if you need to use the internet to get a hold of someone, or something.” Lexa continued. ”I’m confident that in five minutes we can have you back on the street again. In a non-prostituted sense obviously.”  
  
At that, Clarke gave her a look that clearly, even through her sunglasses, said something along the lines of _again with the word vomit you unbelievable dork_. Then she seemed to actually consider the offer, with all the patience of a person wearing an uncomfortably wet t-shirt in a too public setting.  
  
”Alright, well, what do you mean just over the street? Give it to me in yards.”  
  
”Eighteen yards. That’s my house, there, with the blue front door,” Lexa pointed past a couple of market stalls.  
  
”Okay, fine,” Clarke groaned and followed Lexa across the crowded pedestrian street.  
  
”Come on in, I’ll just..” Lexa started to regret her offer the second she unlocked the door and spotted the messy kitchen. Jasper must have left for work already, judging by the forgotten dishes on the table and the sea of breadcrumbs in the sink.  
  
”Right, right.. come in. It’s ehm.. not quite as tidy as it normally is I fear.” Clarke didn’t seem too bothered, and just walked through the hallway and into the kitchen, past Lexa who was rushing to move Jasper’s dishes off the table. She gave the blackboard where Lexa had written ” **JASPER CLEAN UP!** ” in big block letters a curious look.  
  
”So.. um, the bathroom is on the top floor, just keep going up the stairs. And the wifi is _Jasper Stop Changing The WIFI Name_ , password _speakfriendandenter_ , all lowercase, no spaces.”  
  
”Lord of The Rings, huh?” Clarke asked, flustering Lexa with another of her dazzling half-smiles.  
  
”Yeah, well I.. my flatmate, uh..” Lexa babbled, blushing. Then she regained a bit of her footing and manners and reached for the bags Clarke were holding. ”Here, let me..”  
  
Clarke handed her all of the bags except for one, which Lexa assumed had clothes in it, and padded up the first flight of stairs.  
  
”Round the corner and straight on up. Clean towels are in the cupboard.” Lexa told, and remained frozen like a statue until she heard the bathroom door closing. Then she cursed under her breath and continued to take care of Jasper’s mess. Doing something felt way better than just waiting while the beautiful creature that she had spilled orange juice on got changed before probably exiting her life forever.  
  
Clarke came down the stairs a couple of minutes later, wearing chinos and a loose tank top. Her hair was down instead of in the ponytail from before, and Lexa felt her thoughts scattering in all directions. Firstly, how could anyone’s hair look so soft? Was there a magic shampoo only available to A-list celebrities? Secondly, she noticed that Clarke had swapped her pumps for a pair of sneakers and was in fact a tiny bit shorter than Lexa. Thirdly, how did one form proper sentences again, and what was she supposed to say now?  
  
_Bye, have a nice life, sorry about the juice thing?_  
  
After a short silence, with Clarke standing in Lexa’s kitchen studying her like she was waiting for something interesting to happen, Lexa settled on the most British thing she’d ever said:

”Would you like a cup of tea before you go?”  
  
”No.”  
  
Clarke didn’t sound bothered when she declined, more intrigued than anything else.  
  
”Coffee?” Lexa asked, because turning down tea was not necessarily the same as not wanting a drink, and she’d rather be on the safe side.  
  
”No.”  
  
”Orange juice? Probably not.” Lexa groaned internally, and also realized that her own shirt was still very much soaked in orange juice. She hadn’t even noticed.  
  
”Ehm.. something else cold.. Coke? Water?” She opened the fridge and examined its contents. ”Some disgusting, sugary drink pretending to have something to do with fruits of the forest?”  
  
”No.”  
  
By now, Clarke’s voice had taken on a tinge of amusement, and Lexa was well aware of the fact that she was most likely making a fool of herself, but she was too far gone in this nervous ramble to get herself unstuck. So she carried on, uselessly offering the smirking blonde snacks and beverages.  
  
”Would you like something to eat? Something to nibble?” She found a weird-looking jar on one of Jasper’s shelves and took it out to read off the label.  
  
”Apricots, soaked in honey? Why, no one knows – because it stops them from tasting of apricots and makes them taste like honey, and if you wanted honey you could just buy honey, instead of apricots. But nevertheless, they’re yours if you want them.”  
  
”No,” Clarke said with all the certainty of someone who never, ever intended to eat apricots soaked in honey. Lexa couldn’t blame her.  
  
Do you always say no to.. everything?” Lexa asked, feeling more than a little crestfallen but also mad at herself for saying something that could be interpreted as a terrible attempt at flirting. Partly because she had definitely not intended to say something flirty, and also because Lexa hoped that if she actually did try to flirt, she’d have more game than that.  
  
Clarke thought about it for a little while, before sticking to her standard answer.  
  
”No.”  
  
Lexa couldn’t stop a hint of a smile at that, as she nodded in understanding.  
  
”I better get going. Thanks for your.. help,” Clarke said.  
  
”You’re welcome,” Lexa replied and leaned against the fridge door to shut it. ”And may I also say, heavenly,” she continued, averting her eyes the next second when Clarke gave her an inquisitive look.  
  
”I’ll just take my one chance to say it,” Lexa explained. ”After you’ve read that terrible book you’re certainly not going back to the bookshop.”  
  
”Thank you,” Clarke said, quietly.  
  
”Yeah, well.. my pleasure.”  
  
Lexa followed Clarke through the messy hallway and past her slightly neglected bike, to the door. There they stopped, opposite each other, sheltered from the outside world by the door, but still somewhat a part of it thanks to all the noise sifting though the wood.  
  
”So.. it was nice to meet you,” Lexa said, feeling like she was repeating herself from minutes ago, despite not using the exact same words. ”Surreal, but.. um, but nice. Sorry.”  
  
With that, Lexa opened the door and let Clarke pass through. For the second time that day she stood alone in silence, this time still holding the door handle as if she needed to anchor herself to something, wondering if recent events had actually happened or if Jasper had put hallucinogens in her oatmeal by accident. That would at least explain her tendency to word-vomit.  
  
”Surreal but nice? What was I thinking?” Lexa groaned, shaking her head. She decided to go upstairs and change out of her juice-soaked shirt before heading back to work, via the coffee shop to get another of Anya’s weird frappuccinos, but barely made it into the kitchen before the doorbell rang.  
  
”Hi! I forgot one of my bags.”  
  
There was a smiling Clarke Griffin standing on Lexa’s doorstep. Two hours ago she’d laughed if anyone had told her that that would ever happen. Now Lexa simply faltered a little before letting Clarke in. Again. She went back into the kitchen, again, and indeed, there was a bag left on the stool where she had put all of Clarke’s purchases earlier. Grabbing the bag, she returned it to Clarke who was waiting in the hallway.  
  
And there they were, once again sheltered from life, universe and everything by the false safety the rickety front door provided. Lexa put her hands in her pockets, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Opposite her, Clarke had returned to peering at Lexa. As if she had a million questions that she wanted to ask but no words to ask them with. Her eyes were very blue – Lexa hadn’t thought about it before but they were. Blue and curious. Clarke held her gaze, unwavering, and eventually Lexa had to look away or she’d turn into a tomato for the nth time in about an hour.  
  
She had just busied herself with looking at a crack in one of the floor tiles when she felt Clarke moving closer to her – Clarke putting her hand, her very soft and gentle hand, on Lexa’s cheek.  
  
Lexa looked up, met with blue and sunshine and gold, as Clarke Griffin raised herself on her toes, just a little bit, enough to delete the maybe-inch that Lexa was taller. It might have happened quick, but it sure felt like slow-motion. And then they were kissing.  
  
To be fair, the first second was only Clarke. Lexa was dumbstruck, and swayed slightly, still with her hands in her pockets – it was hard to keep balance with your arms pinned to your body and someone else leaning close to surprise you with a kiss.  
The kiss was soft, but not meekly so. It was the kind of kiss that springs up seemingly out of nowhere, like a dandelion growing in the middle of an asphalt parking lot – random and with all odds against it, but stubborn and with enough viability to stay put  
  
Lexa caught up after what felt like an eternity, she kissed back and felt Clarke moving even closer, felt Clarke’s body soften against her when she caught her lower lip between her own, felt herself go slightly weak at the knees at the sharp intake of breath that followed.  
  
Just as Lexa removed her hands from her pockets, to maybe hold Clarke’s hips, or tangle in her hair or just.. something, anything, Clarke backed off.  
  
And the thing was, that when Lexa opened her eyes, blinking twice as if to make sure that she was indeed awake and this hadn’t been some weird dream, she wasn’t looking at award-winning, Hollywood’s sweetheart, probably one of the most famous persons in the world, actress Clarke Griffin.  
  
Well, she saw her too, but not the point.  
Who she saw was just a girl, not too unlike herself, who had just thrown all reason and logic aside and done something based on instinct, or a hunch of something undefinable.  
Lexa could respect that. And holy pancakes could Clarke Griffin kiss. Lexa’s heart was beating a mile a minute.  
  
For all the steady gazes she had directed at Lexa so far, now Clarke’s eyes were flickering. From Lexa’s eyes to the floor to the painting on the wall, to the huge juice-stain on Lexa’s shirt and back again. She looked small, and unsure, maybe even regretful, and Lexa didn’t know what to do.  
  
”I’m really sorry about the surreal but nice comment. Disaster,” She mumbled after a while, mostly to break the odd silence.  
  
”It’s okay, I thought the.. apricots in honey thing was the real low point,” Clarke said, once again looking straight at Lexa, dazed but suddenly way more certain.  
  
And simply because this was the least comprehensible Wednesday of Lexa Woods’ life, the front door flung open and Jasper, dressed in sweatpants and a general air of misery, stomped past them.  
  
”Oh my god. My flatmate. I’m sorry, there’s no excuse for him,” Lexa groaned. Luckily, Jasper paid no attention to either Lexa or the slightly shell-shocked moviestar as he walked past them, instead he went straight into the kitchen and started raiding the fridge.  
  
”Probably best to not tell anyone about this,” Clarke half-whispered, tilting her head in a way that sent a horde of butterflies into Lexa’s stomach.  
  
”Right. No one, I mean.. I’ll tell myself sometimes but don’t worry, I won’t believe it,” Lexa said with a sad smile.  
  
Clarke gathered her bags from the hallway floor, and a pair of goodbyes later she slipped through the door and out into the real world – that boring place where people didn’t by terrible books or randomly kiss other people in hallways.  
  
Once again Lexa held on to the door handle, to steady herself while waiting for her brain to catch up when Jasper interrupted.  
  
”There’s something wrong with this yoghurt,” he said, poking at a white-ish substance in a bowl.  
  
”It’s not yoghurt, it’s mayonnaise,” Lexa said with a sigh.  
  
”Oh, right. That explains everything.”  
  
_No, it doesn’t_ , Lexa thought. _It doesn’t explain anything, other than your borderline disgusting eating habits_. She shuddered when Jasper kept eating the mayo, he was probably high but it was still digusting.  
  
”Hey, you up for a movie marathon tonight?” Jasper asked between spoonfuls of mayo, and Lexa got a strong feeling that his plans with Maya and friends had fell through.

* * *

  
  
She should know better than to play rock-paper-scissors with Jasper to decide who got to pick a movie. Of course he won, and of course he picked the latest blockbuster with Clarke Griffin in it. As if Lexa hadn’t seen enough of her today already. The movie was almost at it’s end, and all that remained was the big dramatic/romantic scene where Clarke’s character and the so-called hero (Lexa thought he was a bit of a fuckboy with manpain to be honest) saved the world only to fall into each other’s arms right after.  
  
”Imagine. Somewhere in the world there’s someone who’s allowed to kiss her,” Jasper whispered between mouthfuls of popcorn, as the generic white dude on screen went all Fabio and held Clarke in his arms.  
  
”Yes, she is.. very fabulous,” Lexa answered, trying her absolute hardest (and failing just as hard) to not think of the way Clarke had gasped and softened against her in her very own hallway earlier that day.

**Author's Note:**

> So.. there's that. Haven't written the next chapter yet, so I can't say when it will be up, but it will be. Up. Eventually.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry if I've mixed british/american english and expressions.. I'm swedish so I tend to mix it up.
> 
> If you have a minute I'd love to hear what you think. Or come say hi on tumblr @intextrovert


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